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Elections

Political Potpourri

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Spiro Agnew (vice-presidential nominee) and Richard Nixon (presidential nominee) at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Fla., August 8, 1968 (UPI / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)

Nixon had a formulation when it came to choosing a vice-presidential running mate. You might say he didn’t mean it, but the formulation was absolutely right, in my opinion. There are three questions to consider, said Nixon. In order of importance, they are these: “Will the person make a good president?” “Will he make a good vice president?” “Will he make a good candidate?”

I think of that every four years (not that I’m ever a presidential nominee). (But if I were . . .)

• Nixon had a great deal of experience, as you know. He was a member of the U.S. House, a member of the U.S. Senate, and a nominee for governor of California. He was on five national tickets: two as the vice-presidential nominee, three as the presidential nominee. He was vice president for eight years, and president for about five and a half.

• Yes, the GOP nominated Nixon for president three times. But Donald Trump is the only person ever to be nominated by that party for president three times in a row.

• Like many others in my biz, I have written about the question of political experience over and over (here, for example). It seems not to be a question anymore. I mean, people rarely talk about it. J. D. Vance has been in the Senate for a year and a half. He never before held political office. In a few months, he could be “a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

It is a non-issue. Should it be? Maybe we can have that discussion, again, another time.

• In 1996, there was a bumper sticker. It always made me smile. “Thurmond-Helms ’96: Don’t Let 200 Years of Experience Go to Waste.”

• “Law and order” can be a cheap phrase. It often is, in the mouths of demagogues. But law and order is vitally important. No society can survive without it. In a democracy, ordered liberty is the name of the game. Each is extremely important: the noun, “liberty,” and the adjective, “ordered.”

This makes the Harris-Walz ticket vulnerable — owing to each candidate’s posture during the riots of 2020.

Yet Democrats have a card to play (a Trump card?). It is encapsulated in the headline over this article: “Despite new criticism, Trump told Walz in 2020 he was ‘very happy’ with his handling of George Floyd protests.”

Democrats might also say, “Who are they to talk about law and order? Didn’t we see an attempt to overturn an election? Didn’t we see a Republican mob attack the U.S. Congress, for the purpose of stopping a constitutional process — which they succeeded in doing, for several hours, while the president watched television?”

Be that as it may . . .

• Before Vice President Harris chose her running mate, I jotted a little tweet:

There is a word now in vogue: “vibe” (or “vibes”).

• Harris-Walz is a markedly left-wing ticket. The Republican ticket is 100 percent MAGA. Are there people more in the political center who are feeling left out? I’m sure.

• Listen to Andrew Egger:

I think Andrew has put the matter very well. There are any number of things you can knock Vance for. But a malicious fiction? When you sacrifice the moral high ground to Trump-Vance, you sacrifice a lot. I would not want to sacrifice that ground, if I were the Democratic ticket.

Consider this, too: Politicians live in glass houses. Any one of them can be subjected to a malicious fiction — spread like wildfire online — any day. There ought to be a certain sympathy. “But for the grace of God . . .”

• Already, there have been some very interesting news stories about Harris and her selection of a running mate. Let me highlight one line from one story (from the Associated Press): “Inside the Harris orbit, there was also some question as to whether Shapiro was actually too good on the stump.” (That would be Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania.)

• I am not a big one on pride, particularly in the context of religion. (We might discuss this another time.) But I knew exactly what Governor Shapiro meant here:

• Lots of people have asked, in so many words: Do Governor Walz’s looks match his views? (See a tweet by our Jim Geraghty, here.). I cannot help thinking of Richard Armitage, the veteran Republican foreign-policy hand. In the old days, a lot of us said, “He looks like a right-winger. But his views are moderate.” (William Safire would sometimes allude to him playfully: “an anonymous source with no neck.”)

(In 2014, I wrote an essay called “Books and Covers: On ‘looking liberal’ and ‘looking conservative.’” Find it here. A rich topic, perhaps surprisingly so.)

• David Frum knew J. D. Vance early on. His comments are fascinating, whether one is pro-Vance or anti-:

• A little fact — a piece of trivia: Three of the four parents of this year’s presidential nominees were immigrants. Harris’s father came from Jamaica, her mother from India. Trump’s mother came from Scotland. (His father was the son of a German immigrant.)

Very American. Almost unremarkable. But remarkable still.

• Throughout the Republican primaries, Donald Trump called Nikki Haley “Nimbra.” (Her given name is “Nimarata”; she has always gone by her middle name, “Nikki.”) Now he is calling Kamala Harris “Kambala.” I imagine that most Trump supporters get a kick out of this. (Otherwise, Trump would desist.) I wonder whether some of his supporters, however, are made a little uncomfortable by it.

• Trump is nothing is not a name-caller. You have seen “Slopadopoulos,” I trust (a reference to George Stephanopoulos):

Here’s some more Trump:

“. . . she’s really DUMB!” “She has an extremely LOW IQ.” “His name is Sleepy Joe Biden!”

Here’s some more Trump:

“Barrack HUSSEIN Obama.” Not merely “Hussein,” mind you, but “HUSSEIN.” In capital letters, it’s extra bad.

Like everyone else, I have had a good eight years to get used to the fact that this man, Trump, is the leader and hero of the Republican Party and conservative movement. But, every now and then, I am still amazed.

• Some of his more thoughtful supporters say, “You know, I wish he’d quit with this race-and-ethnicity stuff and just slam Harris on policy.” A nice sentiment, but one that fails to take into account how populism works. What policy was George Wallace associated with (besides segregation)? No, it was the “vibe.” It was the ’tude that mattered in the Wallace movement.

So it is in any such movement.

The swagger. The chest-thumping. The jokes. The insults. The grievance. The resentment. The “us against them.” The “retribution” (as Trump has said). The fury, sometimes joyous.

In addition to “vibe,” a current word is “feelz.” The feelz: That’s the thing, or those are the things, that get a crowd stirred up — not a plan to tackle the national debt, for heaven’s sake.

• Do you know who Adin Ross is? You had better. He’s one of these young “influencers” on the right — 23. Trump has just sat down with him for an interview. To read a news story, go here.

He knows what he’s doing, Trump does. This is not a babe in the woods.

• Evidently, Mr. Ross is a very wealthy young man. As the above-linked story relates, he came bearing gifts — he arrived for his interview with Trump bearing gifts. He presented the candidate with “a gold Rolex watch and a customized Tesla Cybertruck.”

Dang.

• Check in with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? He has sat down with Scott Ritter:

(If you are hazy on who Mr. Ritter is, here is the relevant Wikipedia entry. He is, among sundry other things, a major Putin man.)

Clearly, RFK Jr. is an admirer of Viktor Orbán — which may cut into the Trump vote?

A curious headline: “RFK Jr. says he placed a dead bear cub in Central Park 10 years ago.” (Article here.)

By a certain kind of critic, I have been accused of being a “zombie Reaganite.” Okay, an admission: When it comes to bears and presidential campaigns, I prefer 1984 — and this Reagan ad. The meaning of the ad? Deterrence, and its importance.

Enough for now . . .

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